Risotto con Asparagi e Verdure - Asparagus and Broccoli Risotto

Everyone's cooking risotto at the moment it seems, and since pasta now sits in the negative column of my diet plan I am increasingly turning to rice as a way of getting that satisfactory carby bloated feeling of gastronomic satiation. British asparagus is in its prime right now and broccoli is nice for a bit of crunch too. I unfortunately can't have parmesan or butter, but frankly they aren't wholly necessary if you're working with a tasty stock, and doing without is that little bit healthier! I used the leftover stock from my chicken and chickpea casserole and just added some more water.

For two people you'll need:

4 handfuls of arborio or carnaroli rice
1 bunch of British asparagus, discard the tough end of the stalks
handful of broccoli florets
handful chopped cabbage
1 sliced leek
3 chopped sage leaves
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 litre of good strong chicken or vegetable stock
1 glass of white plonk
salt and pepper
olive oil


Heat a glug of olive oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan, add the diced onion and garlic and soften until transluscent. Add the rice and coat evenly with the oil, stirring for about 2-3 minutes. Add the chopped sage and stir in. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Add the glass of wine and start stirring the rice grains, cook until the wine has evaporated.

Turn the heat down under the pan to a simmer. You can now start adding your stock, soup ladle by soup ladle, stirring slowly. After the third ladle of stock, throw in the asparagus tips, broccoli, cabbage and leeks. Only add another ladle once the previous one has more or less been absorbed by the rice. This is usually every 45 seconds or so, but you can tell just by looking.
After about 18 minutes, taste your rice for bite. Good risotto should have bite, not be completely cooked to a mush, but the amount of bite is a purely personal taste. Keep adding stock until the rice has the right level of bite for you and the consistency is creamy but not runny and the rice slides off the back of your wooden spoon in a gloop.

Taste and season further if necessary. If you want cheese, stir some in just before serving. Eat in the company of a delicious man and a good movie.

Tabbouleh - Moroccan Bulgar Wheat Salad

Day two of the new diet, I suddenly realise I can eat Tabbouleh, something I could gorge on until kingdom come and a perfect spring dish full of zest and fresh flavours! Based on bulgar wheat and parsley, the ideal proportions are 2 parts parsley to one part bulgar, but I need sustenance and am eating this as a main dish, so I've upped the quantity of bulgar wheat somewhat. You can play around and see which you prefer!

To make enough for four people:

2 cups bulgar wheat (or about 200g)

one massive bunch of flat leaf parsley

one bunch of fresh mint leaves

two lemons

a lime

olive oil

3-4 spring onions

1 red onion

1 fresh red chilli

box of cherry tomatoes or 4 fat tomatoes on the brink of going soft

salt and pepper

dash of cayenne pepper

First prepare the bulgar wheat. Add two parts boiling water to one part bulgar wheat. Cover and simmer gently until the bulgar has absorbed all the water. let it rest and cool down, then fluff up with a fork, like making couscous.

Whilst the bulgar wheat is simmering, chop your parsley, mint, onions, chilli and tomatoes into tiny bits. Mix together in a bowl with the lemon and lime juice and the olive oil. Add the bulgar wheat to this mixture in a large salad bowl. Season generously. Taste, add whatever you think is missing, especially if the mixture is too dry. Finish off with a spot of cayenne pepper. If you're not on a wheat free diet, serve with pita bread and my garlicky hummus for a spring meze...

Brixton Cornercopia "local open-sauced foods"

I promised more on Brixton Village!

Brixton Cornercopia is run by husband and wife Ian and Anne Fairbrother, a small cornershop, deli and cafe serving delicious simple food made from tasty seasonal ingredients at reasonable, recession-worthy prices.

Located in unit 65 of "Brixvill", you'll notice it from the pretty red and white tablecloth bedecked tables garnished with fresh flowers and fashioned out of upturned crates. Oh, and the constant buzz of people wanting to eat there...

The point of Cornercopia is not just about using the resources of a market within the market space, but sharing the food experience with locals, interacting with the local community around the table and encouraging the people of Brixton (and beyond!) to invest in their markets and be part of a community in an active, invested way.

I ate here on a gloriously sunny Saturday, although I was really looking for a place to park myself for a quick coffee and a read of the paper, the menu caught my eye, as did a couple of very content looking customers enjoying a brilliantly green looking bowl of soup.

Despite having tucked into pasta only half an hour earlier, I decided to make some space in my bottomless gullet for more food and sat down.

A charming, very attentive waiter came whizzing out with a menu. Two courses for £9 or three for £12, generous sized portions, but not exaggerated and everything in season and bought locally. I had a cox's apple juice and ordered poached egg with leek vinaigrette and bacon. A yummy combination of unctuous yolk, crispy salty bacon and the tangy leeks and mustard seed went down a treat.

This was followed by a sweet cured salmon fillet, served just warm on a bed of English asparagus (cooked to perfection), green beans, rocket and a saffron and orange sauce with orange segments. It was perfect for the weather, with spring colours, good flavours, not too heavy and enjoying my nosh whilst watching both the chef and the waiter chatting away to the locals and catching up on the Brixvill gossip was very enjoyable. In fact, I pretty much ignored my paper and just sat back to enjoy everything going on around me. Which I suppose is the point of a relaxing lunch in your local market.

I'll definitely be back, and would encourage local business people to take advantage of their cheap lunch deals, which include Meze platters for £4.50. Oh and they serve yummy jars of preserved lemons and jams and chutneys and all sorts too...

Catch up with all their activities and read the latest menu online at their Ning network site:

http://brixtoncornercopia.ning.com/

Other Brixton restaurants include: Bellantoni's pasta shop.

Pasta con gli Asparagi - Pasta with Asparagus

It's asparagus season in Italy and we got a kilo of the good stuff from Terracina to whip up a good lunch with. To make this easy and delicious pasta dish for 2, you'll need:

200 g pasta, go for the tube type or the flat bow-ties.

150 g of asparagus tips

1 huge clove of garlic, bashed

glug of good olive oil

big knob of unsalted butter

freshly ground black pepper

two teaspoons of anchovy paste or fresh anchovy fillets

Heat a shallow frying pan with an inch or two of salted water and bring to simmering point. Blanche the asparagus tips in the water for 3-4 minutes (5 if they're really fat) then drain the cooking water from the asparagus into a saucepan. Keep the asparagus to one side.

Top up the saucepan with more hot water and bring to the boil. Drop in the pasta and stir. While your pasta is cooking, take the frying pan you used before and pour in a good tablespoon of olive oil and a knob of butter and heat until the butter froths, then drop in the bashed garlic clove and swirl around in the butter. 

Add 3-4 anchovy fillets or the anchovy paste

and stir until dissolved in the oil/butter mix. 

Once this is done, add the asparagus tips and cook on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Add a generous dose of black pepper.

Drain the pasta once cooked and add to the pan with the asparagus, coating the pasta in all the butter and oil. If necessary add a tablespoon of the cooking water to help coat everything. Add just the tiniest amount of grated parmesan if you want.

Fave e Pecorino

Fave e Pecorino is the dish that foir me kicks off the spring season. Fresh fava beans, still in their shells are heaped in vibrant green mountains at every fruttivendolo (greengrocer) in Italy and the best way to offset their ripe, sweet, crispy green flesh is with slivers of salty, mature pecorino.

Plonk a basket of fava beans in their shells on the table, a slab of pecorino with a knife and good bottle of crisp dry white wine and you've got yourself the ideal spring aperitivo. Simple, informal, and tasty as hell. 

Pepperoni con i Caperi - Peppers with Capers

This is a colourful, ridiculously simple and tasty dish, which I like to make either as part of a cold antipasto, or served warm with fish. 

Ingredients:

Bell peppers: (count one per person), any colours you like although yellow, orange and red work best, green is a bit tangy.

Garlic: two fat cloves

Capers: fat ones with stalks if possible, or small ones in brine.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Method:

Pour yourself a glass of white wine and put on some music you like. Remove the stalks and the white pithy parts of the peppers then slice them into thinnish strips. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a frying pan and plop in the crushed garlic cloves. Before they start to brown, add in the peppers and lower the heat, stir until all the peppers are coated in garlicky oil. Raise the heat to scorch the peppers for a few minutes then lower the heat again. Add two heaped teaspoons of capers (or more if you're cooking loads) and a couple of teaspoons of their brine. Stir again and cover the whole lot and allow to slowly bubble away for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. I like to add chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley before serving, but its not essential.

Many people aren't keen on eating peppers before bedtime so I tend to serve this as a lunchtime dish. Perfect for springtime!

Warm Salad of Wild Greens- Minestra di Erbe Spontanee

Minsetra di Erbe Spontanee - Stewed wild greens

To accompany our delicious stuffed aubergines, Rafaello's mum cooked us up a dish which represents the core of Cilento traditional peasant cooking. From a time in which resources were scarce, nothing was wasted and people made do with what little they could find comes this rich and delicately fragrant side dish of wild herbs. All of the ingredients are leaves and herbs that grow wild in the surrounding mountains and thus were free for everyone to use at a time when market vegetables were expensive and few. Its hard work to make though as one has to go out forraging for the ingredients ones self, not an easy feat on barren, rocky steep mountains. The result however is worth the struggle. Not even salt is added to the stew - simply herbs and water because the varied ingredients produce such a vibrant mixture of flavours.

You will need:

-a large deep cooking pot filled with bubbling boiling water.

-any quantity desired of the following wild greens:

dandelion leaves
wild fennel
borage leaves
nettles
thistle leaves
zucchini flowers

Put all the leaves in the water, boil for about 6-9 minutes, drain and squeeze out excess water.

Heat a good spoon of good olive oil in a pan, add the drained herb mixtures and a pinch of salt and toss in the warmed oil. Serve hot with fresh bread.

Of course, the beauty of this soup is you can add what you find in season, fava beans in spring time, fresh basil, thyme and oregan etc... But the wild fennel is what really gives the soup its kick!